Identifying with Muggles in Potterverse WAS: Re: DD at th...

[quick_silver71]

No: HPFGUIDX 158137

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ken Hutchinson" <klhutch at ...> 
wrote:
> Ken:
> 
> In a thousand years nobody thought to correct the founders' 
shortsightedness? 
> That doesn't say anything good about the WW. The arguement you 
give is 
> exactly the same one engineering students use when complaining 
about their
> humanities requirement. The consequences in the WW are exactly 
what they
> would be the real world if we did not make science and technology 
students
> study the humanities. In our world physicists are often very 
cultured people
> and even though we rarely are credited with it, engineers are too. 
Remove
> the moderating influence of culture and the world of technology 
would run
> amok, much as it does in the Potterverse. That would, perhaps, be 
part of 
> Rowling's message.
> 
> Certianly comics would count as culture and that is generally 
recognized 
> today even though many are still not wild about the idea. But 
where is the 
> deeper appreciation of all of human culture? A love of Boston does 
not 
> preclude a love of Brubeck which does not preclude a love of Bach. 
Where
> is the love of Bach or Brubeck or Boston? Surely these things and 
many
> others reach wizards and witches as well as us. Back in my day 
engineering
> students carried an average of 5 credit hours more per semester 
than 
> liberal arts students. We would have had a much easier time of it 
if we
> could have done without the humanities and it forced us to take up 
the
> technological classes we didn't have time for as undergratuates in 
graduate
> school. We would have been much the poorer if real schools adopted 
the
> Hogwarts solution. We would live in a darker world too. Nothing 
prevents
> Hogwarts from teaching the Humanities AND having a graduate program
> in advanced magic.

But eventually this becomes a debate over the meaning of "culture". 
I'm an engineering student so I understand your argument but I'm not 
a big believer in the "teaching" of culture. What makes Bach 
more "cultural" then Celestina Warbeck in HP? A lot of people feel 
that the Humanities and Liberal Arts at Universities teach an 
elitist type of culture to begin with. 

A lot of people would argue that's it's not a school systems place 
to be teaching "cultural" values that that's the role of the family 
and/or community. Indeed it could be argued that by not teaching 
culture Hogwarts is doing the Muggle-born students a favor...instead 
of learning a completely new culture (complete with history, music, 
politics, arts, etc) they focus the Muggle-borns on learning 
magic...the defining element of wizarding society. 

Too often teaching culture comes across as a simple way to 
indoctrinate a large group of people with the same tastes, views, 
etc. Instead Hogwarts takes a hand off approach...allowing the 
students to learn wizarding culture on their own (and often with 
very bad results).

Maybe it's me but to a certain extent the "culture" situation in 
Wizarding world mirrors Canada (minus Quebec) in that you have a 
smaller very diverse culture always in the shadow (and seemingly 
under threat from) of a large culture (in Canada's case the United 
States). Indeed Quidditch's status in the wizarding world seems very 
similar to ice hockey's status in Canada (sorry to the Canadians 
that don't like hockey). Within certain circles of Canadian culture 
a defining oath seems to be that they're not American which could be 
seen as a parallel to the wizards defining themselves from the 
muggles based on one trait (magic).   

Quick_Silver